Note 9: — NOTES ON EARLY ITALIAN GESSO WORK

Cennino is said to have been living in Padua in the year 1398. His treatise shows the care and patience necessary to good workmanship in the various arts and crafts he describes, and throws much light upon the methods of the artist craftsman of his time, and is of particular value and interest as touching the subjects of tempera painting, gilding, and, incidentally, of gesso-relief decoration, to the ornamental effect of which both the former are important contributors. Now there are several distinct varieties of gesso work. Firstly we have gesso relief used to adorn and enrich painted panels, or as an adjunct to decorative painting. Of this there are many instances: a notable one may be cited in the frescoes of Pinturrichio in the Appartamenti Borgia in the Vatican at Rome where the paintings are heightened by gilded parts in relief, such as weapons and ornaments, embroidery or robes, and even architectural mouldings. The late Mr. Spencer Stanhope revived this union of gilded gesso with decorative painting, as in his work in the chapel at Marlborough College. Other examples may be found in our National Gallery. The superb collection of Italian gesso work in the Victoria and Albert Museum, unrivalled anywhere, from which, by the courtesy of the late Mr. Skinner, who was Sir C. Purdon Clarke's successor in the directorship,9 I am enabled to give my illustrations, may be referred to as furnishing examples of every variety of treatment in the craft, as well as of the taste and invention and richness of early Italian decorative design.